Search Result

Search Tags: House

Congress missed the deadline to avert
sequestration last week. And now a deadline to
prevent a government shutdown at the end of the
month is barreling toward lawmakers. But
members of both chambers and from both sides of
the aisle say they're confident they can work
out a deal to keep the government running.The
likely sticking point is how the the automatic
budget cuts, known as sequestration, will
continue to play out. House Democratic Whip
Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-
Okla.) discuss the continuing resolution and
sequestration on In Depth with Francis Rose.

The fiscal 2013 spending bill doesn't remove
the requirement for the Postal Service to
deliver first-class mail six days a week. Other
provisions in the bill povide a boost in
funding DHS cyber, DoD acquisition and VA IT
spending.

The House has approved legislation to prevent a
government shutdown at the end of the month,
freeze federal pay for a third straight year
and give the Defense Department some relief
from a cash crunch caused by sequestration. The
huge spending measure, which was passed on a
267-151 vote, would fund federal operations
through September. It leaves in place automatic
cuts of 5 percent to domestic agencies and 7.8
percent to the Pentagon ordered by President
Barack Obama Friday night after months of
battling Republicans over the budget.

Over the past few years, unimplemented agency
inspector general recommendations that could
potentially save the government billions of
dollars have piled up. Now, with $85 billion in automatic budget cuts kicking in, lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee are telling agencies there's no
excuse for them to further delay implementing
the cost-saving measures and best practices
identified by their IGs.

The lower chamber's bill would significantly soften the blow against DoD and potentially eliminate current plans such as civilian furloughs because of the automatic budget cuts. The remainder of the government would remain under both sequestration and a full-year continuing resolution.

House Republicans unveiled a stopgap government funding measure Monday. The measure would extend the federal pay freeze and leave in place automatic sequestration cuts but would award the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments their detailed 2013 budgets while other agencies would be frozen at 2012 levels -- and then bear the across-the-board cuts. The current continuing resolution expires March 27.

A House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on the decision by the Defense and Veterans Affairs Departments to scale back plans for a joint integrated electronic-health records systems dredged up longstanding issues with the two departments' EHR efforts.